World football governing body FIFA has announced that all drug tests taken at the World Cup in Russia did not reveal any presence of any banned substances.

“The analyses of all doping tests conducted before and during the competition have yielded negative results,” FIFA said in a statement on Thursday.

The testing program, described as “the largest ever conducted for a World Cup”, involved more than 1,500 players whom FIFA marked as potential World Cup participants during the qualifying campaign.

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Every World Cup player underwent doping tests before the competition with further unannounced systematic tests being conducted after the games and on non-match days.

The organization said that every player from the four semi-finalist nations has been tested an average 4.41 times since January, with some of them facing eight doping control procedures.

All samples collected at the tournament were reported to be analysed at WADA-accredited laboratories abroad.

The Russian squad faced controversy in the buildup to their home World Cup after the former head of Moscow anti-doping laboratory, Grigory Rodchenkov, alleged that team members had benefitted from performance-enhancing drugs.

Two weeks ago, FIFA rejected claims by UK tabloid the Mail on Sunday that it had covered up cases of doping by Russian footballers.